CCTVImage | Imaging technology
The effect that the Lynn image enhancers have when viewing through smoke and fog
He adds that digital video stabilization techniques involve an algo- rithm complexity that can be high, causing a consequent computational load. RFEL’s approach processes image frames on a tile basis in the spatial frequency domain and can operate effectively even when the scene contains no high-contrast prominent features. It supports high input resolutions and frame rates, while maintaining low latency and power consumption, it’s claimed. It’s also reportedly compat- ible with cameras operating over different spectral bands, with support of multiple camera interfaces. RFEL’s FPGA-based hardware implementa- tion provides the computational resources required to process several gigabit/s input rates with this spatial frequency stabilization method.
Low-vis tablet app
Meanwhile, also announcing new video enhancement technology at Counter Terror Expo was Lyyn, which unveiled an iTunes app for importing and post-processing footage on an iPad to enhance low- visibility video. Lyyn’s roots as a start-up technology company in Sweden go back a decade to Lund University and Malmo University Hospital. It devel- oped/patented Visibility Enhancement Technology software (VET) to ‘clean’ digital images and video and later added firmware includ- ing more recent products such as Hawk and Griffin. Security applications to date include its use by Birmingham City Council to identify individuals in low light areas in shopping centre locations. The Highways Agency has also recently trialled it for motorway lane monitoring, viewing traffic movements on the Severn, Humber and Tamar Bridges. Additionally, Lyyn’s Hawk real-time video enhancement system is operational at the Ikea/Amega 130,000 square-metre shopping centre in Ekaterinburg, Russia, where it’s used for low-light camera deployments and parking area entrance monitoring to survey vehicles regardless of weather and lighting conditions. The company’s Griffin system, launched two years ago, is described as a real-time solution for hybrid CCTV networks and enables use of analogue cameras and distribu- tion of enhanced video via an IP network, without the need for an analogue to digital video encoder. That’s because it has a built-in ONVIF-compliant encoder based on Axis Communications’ Q7401 device. “Our products work well with
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colour thermal and low light cameras, with the software algorithms interpreting and enhancing images by pulling out detail through conditions such as haze and fog,” says Robert Chandler from Lyyn’s UK office.
Thermal advances Thermal imaging is a specialism of FLIR Systems, which has been
supplying thermography and night-vision equipment for over 50 years.
Thermal imaging cameras are sensitive to electromagnetic radia- tion in the infrared spectrum, needing no visible light to function. Asked for FLIR’s USPs as a supplier, Tim Cocks, technical direc- tor of distributor partner CCTV Center, points to FLIR’s “thermal imaging core” technology being used in OEM equipment as well as its own.
It was also one of the first manufacturers to introduce high-resolu- tion 640 x 480 pixel thermal cameras for commercial applications, he adds – providing up to 16 times the image clarity and longer threat detection range performance than lower resolution cameras. Its equipment is now crossing over from ‘pure’ security applica- tions into other dual value-added applications, too. For example, by including temperature measurement capabilities, enabling cameras to additionally monitor systems for overheating – applications here include energy and utilities sites such as electricity substations, where overheating can be critical.
Public sector applications for its thermal imaging cameras include police, prisons, sensitive government sites and critical national infra- structure monitoring. Units also monitor entrances and exits for the network of tunnels carrying electricity cable distribution networks across major cities, where pylons aren’t feasible, and the cameras work in conjunction with analytics software to provide incident gen- erated alarms.
Cocks explains that thermal imaging particularly suits sites which
can’t be conventionally lit, for instance because it’s environmentally unacceptable to deploy white lighting and/or too expensive to run.
Areas being monitored may also be beyond the range of infrared lighting, and ther- mal’s greater distance capa- bilities can solve such prob- lems too. There may also be
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